MAUPIN – There aren’t many places where you can stand in one spot and have a realistic chance of hooking a steelhead, encountering a rattlesnake, and spotting a wild bighorn sheep.

But then, the lower Deschutes River has a national reputation for a reason.

The lower Deschutes is a big piece of water, stretching the 100 river miles from the Pelton Round Butte Dam complex downstream to its mouth at the Columbia River.

This time of year, to increase your chances of the steelhead-rattlesnake-bighorn trifecta, you might want to try fishing the river along the 19 miles between Sherars Falls and Macks Canyon Campground.

As an added bonus, you also increase your odds of getting a flat tire on a washboard gravel road in a remote setting where cell phones don’t work.

”The draw is the concentration of fish,” said John Smeraglio of the Deschutes Canyon Fly Shop in Maupin. ”There are more numbers of fish below Sherars Falls the last part of August, first part of September.

”Most of the reports I’ve been getting lately from Sherars Falls down have been a hook-up a day. Some days you don’t get anything. Some days you get two or three.”

By the middle of September, the river will have fishable numbers of steelhead all the way up to the dams. But the section from Sherars Falls to Macks Canyon will still be good.

”You can fish down there all the way through Halloween, really,” said Smeraglio. ”This is a long river system, and you get fish coming in for three months, sometimes four. There are still a lot of late fish coming up.”

Many anglers prefer the nine-mile section of river from Maupin to Sherars Falls, which is paralleled by a paved road. But just because the pavement ends doesn’t mean good steelhead runs no longer exist.

”From Maupin to Macks Canyon there are many famous steelhead spots that have names and have been fished for many years,” said Steve Pribyl, a biologist with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife based in The Dalles. ”It’s a good opportunity for somebody who doesn’t have a boat to access the river.”

Anglers on this section of the river also have a better chance of hooking a wild steelhead than those fishing higher up on the Deschutes.

”If someone wanted to hook, admire and release a wild Deschutes steelhead, the Macks Canyon Road would be an excellent place to do that,” said Pribyl, noting that the farther upstream an angler goes, the fewer wild fish there are likely to be. ”The ratio is much heavier to hatchery fish (higher up) simply because the wild fish don’t move as fast, nor do they go in numbers above Trout Creek.”

All wild steelhead must be released unharmed, though anglers are allowed to keep up to three hatchery steelhead per day. Wild steelhead have the adipose fin – the fin between the tail and dorsal fin – intact. The adipose fin is clipped off of hatchery steelhead.

What stops some anglers from fishing below Sherars Falls is the 19-mile Macks Canyon Road, which has picked up a reputation as a tire eater. After the 1996 flood washed out parts of the road, it was resurfaced with sharp-edged crushed shale. The shale has dulled over the years and become less of a hazard for tires, but it’s still a concern.

”It’s really sharp rock,” said Rod Woodside of Richmond’s Service in Maupin. ”We still get six or seven (flat) tires a day, compared to the 20 we were getting the first two years (after the shale was put down). And I’m just one station in town, plus guys take their tires home to fix.”

Woodside recommends an eight-ply tire or, at the minimum, a six-ply tire with a tread not worn down by more than two-thirds. He also recommends driving the posted speed limit of 20 mph on the Macks Canyon Road to reduce the chances of a puncture. When drivers ignore the speed limit, business at Richmond’s is good.

”I probably don’t charge as much as I should,” said Woodside, a steelhead fisherman himself. ”But everybody’s got a hard-luck story and I’m always afraid I’m going to be the next one with the hard-luck story. But it’s paid the tire machine off.”

Besides flat tires, rattlesnakes must also be taken into consideration. When Smeraglio approaches an area with some brush, he said he’ll sometimes roll a few melon-sized rocks through so as not to surprise any rattlesnakes.

While many anglers like to fish with dogs, the lower Deschutes is not the place for a four-legged fishing companion.

”We call dogs rattlesnake detection devices because they’re going to find them,” said Pribyl. ”Every year there are human-rattlesnake-dog encounters. I know of several dogs that have been bitten in the last several years.”

Anglers who make it through the gauntlet of flat tires and rattlesnakes will find many great steelhead runs along the Macks Canyon Road. Some, not content with one side of the river, use small inflatables or pontoon boats to float to the other side of the river to fish those runs.

A little bit of caution and common sense is needed for this maneuver, said Smeraglio. Also, a Deschutes boater’s pass and a life jacket are required to drift across the river.

For anglers with drift boats, there are six launch sites between Sherars Falls and Macks Canyon. There are also eight Bureau of Land Management campgrounds in that stretch. The BLM allows camping only in designated areas. As steelhead season heats up, the campgrounds start attracting more anglers.

”Used to be I’d be the only person in the campground,” said Richard Russell of Salem, ensconced with his trailer at the end-of-the-road Macks Canyon Campground, where he’s been coming for 12 years. ”The last few years there has been a lot more people down here.”

But that’s still fewer anglers than above Sherars Falls, which also sees a steady convoy of rafters through August.

”There are too many rafters and floaters in that section between Maupin and Sherars Falls,” said Russell.

Once colder weather sets in, most of the river will be left to steelhead anglers. The last few years have seen large runs of steelhead, including a record run of more than 40,000 last season. While this season’s run is probably going to fall a little short of that number, Pribyl said, it’s still likely to be another great year for Deschutes steelhead anglers.

”I’m optimistic,” said Pribyl. ”I’m looking forward to a real good rest of the season. The numbers we’re seeing so far suggest we’re going to have a real good year of fishing.”

Keith Ridler can be contacted at kridler@bendbulletin.com or 383-0393.